Damage calculation
Category:Game mechanics Damage in Guild Wars results from actions taken by attackers that subtract a portion of a defender's health. This definition includes many attacks or skills (including spells) but does not include health degeneration, life stealing, sacrifice, or health reduction caused by skills such as Infuse Health or Illusion of Weakness. When an attacker attempts to damage a target, the following is factored in: *The damage type, such as Fire or Blunt. The amount of damage done may vary due to the defender's armor and resistances to that specific damage type. *The attacker's ability to inflict the damage. *The target's ability to resist this damage. *Bonuses on both sides. An attacker may have bonuses that augment the damage and the target may have bonuses that reduce the damage. A Simplified Damage Calculation Note: For simplicity, on this page the term '''attack' describes any attempt to damage an opponent. However, whenever the word "attack" is used in skill descriptions, it refers to the attack action.'' There are many different factors to consider while calculating damage. To avoid confusion, this section presents a simplified damage calculation which only takes into consideration the more common factors. The Approximate Damage (ApproxD) depends on the Raw Damage (RD) and the Armor Effect (AE). :ApproxD = RD × AE; For damage that ignore armor, AE is set to 1. Raw Damage Skill-based offense (like Shock) have a specific raw damage (RD) value indicated in the skill description. Weapons attacks select RD each time uniformly from the damage range of the weapon. For weapons that have an attribute requirement on their damage range, there is actually another hidden range used for when the attacker does not meet the requirement (see here for details). Effective Damage The Effective Damage (ED) considers all the Damage Modifiers that were dropped when calculating the Approximate Damage. The ED depends on the Raw Damage (RD), various Damage Modifiers (D*), and the Armor Effect (AE). :'''ED = [(× DScale× AE + DShift) × DMult] + DNeg Again, for attacks that ignore armor, AE is set to 1, essentially removing it from the equation. Damage Cap and Redirection Certain enchantments will restrict the maximum damage the target can receive, or redirect some of the damage away from the target, thus making the received damage less than the Effective Damage. Redirection is always applied before the cap. Notes Every 8 ranks in a physical damage attribute thus doubles the net noncaster damage caused; similarly, every 13 character levels doubles caster damage. The accounting per rank or level is as follows: every rank in attack attributes scales the damage by exactly a factor of 2(1/8) (roughly 9%), and every character level scales the caster damage by 23/40 (roughly 5.33%). Note that the effect of cumulative ranks or levels is compounded; for example, 5 ranks in an attack attribute doesn't increase damage by 45%, but by (1.095 - 1) × 100 ≈ 53%. It is important to keep in mind that certain skills such as Greater Conflagration and Judge's Insight change the damage type, and therefore can have an effect on AR bonuses or DR calculation. The articles on these skills explain their damage type changes in more detail. Only in the early PvE game, advanced PvE areas, or in exceptional situations is the EffectiveAR actually less than the EffectiveDR, so the AE generally always reduces the effective damage. The philosophy behind the AE scale can be seen as follows: in the prototypical case where the attacker and target are roughly equal PvP players, the attacker's ranked 12 noncaster attack or normal caster attack at character level 20 will exactly negate the target's EffectiveAR of 60 (standard for all spellcaster PvP armor). The AE equation gives us a handy rule of thumb: every 40 increase (decrease) in EffectiveAR halves (doubles) the amount of normal damage (i.e., damage not caused by armor ignoring attacks). A Warrior with 100 armor against physical damage being whacked by a sword will take half as much damage as any 60 armor Elementalist being whacked by the same sword. Skills such as Healing Signet temporarily reduce AR by 40, which translates to double damage for normal attacks. An increase of approximately 16 armor would correspond to taking 75% damage. (Many ranger armors such as Drakescale or Frostbound Armor give AR bonuses of +15.) Handy Simplification: eAR = (Your Current AR - 60) '''1 / (2^(eAL/40)) = ~Damage Taken % Consider a Mesmer, an Elementalist, and a Ranger being hit by the same attribute level 16, caster level 20 Fireball. The Mesmer with only 60 armor takes all 119 damage. The Elementalist has Pyromancer's Armor with 75 armor against fire and takes 92. The Ranger wears Druid's Armor which has 100 armor against elemental damage so he takes 60 damage. Attribute Effect Listed weapon damage is done to a target with 60 armor when the attribute in the rank of the tied attribute equals the attribute requirement of the weapon (assuming both target and damage dealer are level 20), with any extra points in the attribute contributing to extra dealt damage. Also, as previously stated every 8 ranks in a physical damage attribute doubles the net damage caused by a noncaster weapon tied to that attribute (swords, axes, bows, spears, scythes, daggers, and hammers). Therefore, a max-damage scythe (9-41) with a requirement of 8 (very rare) should deal approximatly 18 to 82 damage with a rank of 16 in the approate attribute (in this case scythe mastery). Due to diminishing returns this is not the case, while it will do more than 9 -41, it will not be dealing double damage. Diminishing returns affect weapon attacks when the attribute rank exceeds the weapon's requirement such that double damage is never achieved, but damage is slightly increased by each rank above the requirement. Due to attribute ranks above the required dealing extra damage, a lower requirement weapon will do more damage than a higher requirement weapon at the same attribute. Illustrative Examples Related Articles *Spike damage *Damage over time *Point Blank Area of Effect *Area of Effect Original References The present article is built on the results of the research laid out in the original unannotated version of the following article, with additional original research conducted by users of the GuildWiki. *SonOfRah's damage article